The small abortion clinic in my community is so quiet, one might assume it had gone out of business. It hasn’t, but the protesters have disappeared like fruit flies in winter. Even the grey-haired old man who used to carry a picket sign to and fro on the pavement has probably gone t
I have a friend who bought animal heads at a garage sale, once. He hung them in his den then invited me to admire the display. Frankly, I found a room filled with decapitated heads to be eerie and could no more understand why a person would hang carcasses on a wall than I could unders
While I admit to worrying about the dark side of robotics, like the loss of jobs for the worker, I rarely imagine a world populated by Terminators bent on destroying mankind. In fact, as writer Charles Taylor points out, robots are likely to improve many aspects of our lives. (“Robo
Gothic Spring, my novel, looks at the stranglehold Victorian values had on women. Nonetheless, my characters enjoy a little hanky-panky before the fall, unlike the outcomes in what is known in the commercial trade as “bonnet books.” Bonnet books, as writer Ann Neumann describes th
People who’ve been reading this blog for a while may have noticed my style changes from colloquial to formal, depending on the topic at hand. If I’m attempting humor, my sentences may include a few contractions and shorten. When tackling a book review, not only do I sometimes sp
A Facebook friend in her 60s commented she finally remembered the name of the bird she’d seen in her garden. That she was able to do so made her made her happy. It meant her little gray cells were working. I knew what she meant. At a certain age, we tend to second guess ourselves, e
I read an essay by novelist Claire Messud, recently, which raised questions about the pace of everyday life. (“In Praise of Boredom,” by Claire Messud, Harper’s, August 2015, pgs. 52-54). At times, her thoughts appeared to be hurried and unrelated, beginning with reminiscences a
Last week, I did a search on Amazon, looking for the correct spelling of an author’s name. I didn’t want to buy his book, nonetheless for several succeeding days, I was dogged by promos whenever I surfed the web. I wasn’t intrigued. I felt assaulted. What I didn’t know was the
The other day my 94 year-old psychologist friend sat down opposite me as I was having lunch at the retirement center. I was munching dutifully on a slab of grilled tofu and a few roasted potatoes, nourishing stuff, but uninspiring. He looked at my plate with a blank expression. “The
Sometimes, if you wait long enough, a problem solves itself. For some time, pundits have been warning about the collapse of our technical infra structure. Not only is our system susceptible to hackers living in the wilds of Nigeria, but to those in Russia and China who can open our hi